313
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip 28 points 2 months ago

He was what we would now call a volcel.

Women were distractions to him, he was much more interested in inventing calculus, arguing over who invented calculus, astronomy, alchemy, economics, etc.

[-] Chev@lemmy.world 22 points 2 months ago
[-] sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Possible, but that would imply he simply had no sexual desires/attraction whatsoever.

Of course, when debating the supposed sexuality of people who lived and died roughly 400 years ago there's always going to room for argument, differing interpretations, and of course rumors.

To which I submit this, part of a 'Fragment on the History of Apostasy', written by Newton himself:

The way to chastity is not to struggle directly with incontinent thoughts but to avert the thoughts by some imployment, or by reading, or meditating on other things, or by convers. By immoderate fasting the body is also put out of its due temper & for want of sleep the fansy is invigorated about whatever it sets it self upon & by degrees inclines towards a delirium in so much that those Monks who fasted most arrived to a state of seing apparitions of weomen & their shapes & of hearing their voices in such a lively manner as made them often think the visions true apparitions of the Devil tempting them to lust.

https://www.newtonproject.ox.ac.uk/view/texts/normalized/THEM00061

Attempting to summarize and translate this into more modern parlance:

Newton thinks the best way to maintain chastity is not to entertain your sexual fantasies/desires in your mind, but to constantly busy yourself with work, reading, meditating or conversation, and also that fasting as monks do actually makes sexual desires so inflamed that it has resulted in many monks having dreams or visions or hallucinations of tempting, lustful women which are so vivid that monks believe them to be from the Devil.

To me, this reads as Newton himself telling us his own preferred strategy of maintaining chastity, implying it is something he struggles with, must put effort into, thus implying he is not asexual, and that his method of quenching his sexual urges is actually superior to that of what many monks do.

Thus, volcel, not asexual.

Again though, this is far from definitive proof!

I'd be interested if anyone could source some actually real evidence either way on this, as a whole lot of Newton's speculated sexuality is pop history or pseudo history based on hearsay.

[-] SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 months ago

I don't think incels were possible back then

[-] sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip 8 points 2 months ago

... you... don't think there were people too poor, or ugly, or unhygenic, or rude, or abrasive, or poor of health, ... to have ever had a sexual encounter, to ever be married ... and to become misogynistic as a result?

[-] PugJesus@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago

Considering that marriage was not optional for the vast majority of people and the extremely low standards for the treatment of women, incels would have been vanishingly rare. Maybe a few literal lepers.

[-] sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 months ago

I feel we are both technically correct here.

Were incels common? Almost certainly not.

Were incels impossible? No. Rare, but not impossible.

this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2024
313 points (95.1% liked)

A Comm for Historymemes

1509 readers
375 users here now

A place to share history memes!

Rules:

  1. No sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, assorted bigotry, etc.

  2. No fascism, atrocity denial, etc.

  3. Tag NSFW pics as NSFW.

  4. Follow all Lemmy.world rules.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS